Nintendo Announces Super-Sized 3DS XL for August

Nintendo said Thursday that it will release the Nintendo 3DS XL, a larger-sized model of its handheld game machine, on August 19 in the United States for $200.

Europe and Japan will get first crack at the device on July 28.

The new machine features larger screens and a longer battery life than the current 3DS model, and will be bundled with a 4 GB SD memory card. 3DS XL will be available in red and blue colors, shown above, at launch.

Even though Nintendo has released an add-on device called Circle Pad Pro that adds a second analog joystick to the 3DS, it did not make that second stick a built-in feature for the new model.

A report just prior to the Electronic Entertainment Expo earlier this month in the Japanese Nikkei Shimbun newspaper claiming that a larger 3DS “could be on sale as early as this summer in Japan, the US and Europe” added fuel to the fire.

Today’s hardware news headlined dueling streaming-video presentations on Nintendo’s Japanese and American websites. Other revelations of note:

New Super Mario Bros. 2 will feature paid-for downloadable content in the form of bonus “Coin Rush” stages. Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime stated that these stages will be made “after our developers finish working on the main game.”

The 3DS version of the strategy game Fire Emblem, already out in Japan, will be coming to the US in 2013. This game will also include DLC.

The forthcoming Super Smash Bros. fighting games for Wii U and 3DS will be developed in cooperation with Namco Bandai (Tekken, Soul Calibur). Masahiro Sakurai remains the director of the project.

US 3DS owners can look forward to two classic Virtual Console downloadable games each week in July, including the Game Boy games Kirby’s Pinball Land and Wario Land and the original NES version of The Legend of Zelda. Nintendo will also have special sales to commemorate the 1-year anniversary of the eShop, with more details to come.